EDITORIAL: Winners and losers (04/02/06)

EDITORIAL

Winners and losers

The 2006 parliamentary elections had some clear winners, and some clear losers. First among the winners were the people of Ukraine, as the elections, by all accounts, were a huge success and evidence that democracy is on the march.

At first glance, of course, it seems that Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of the Regions of Ukraine are the top winners. That's true if you simply look at the vote totals and see that Regions led with 32.12 percent. But Mr. Yanukovych actually lost public support, if you consider that during the 2004 presidential election he had the support of 44.20 of the voters in the third round (which he lost to Viktor Yushchenko).

It was Yulia Tymoshenko and the bloc she heads that are the clearest winners of the March 26 balloting. The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc defied the expectations of countless observers when it not only claimed 22.27 percent of the vote, but beat the Our Ukraine bloc by more than 8 percentage points. And, one look at the electoral map on page 3 of this issue shows just how broad Ms. Tymoshenko's support is.

The Yushchenko camp, i.e., the Our Ukraine coalition, came in a disappointing third, and with less votes than predicted by all the pollsters a mere 13.94 percent and a plurality in only three oblasts (Ivano-Frankivsk, Zakarpattia and Lviv). The vote represented a resounding rebuke to the president from a disenchanted electorate.

An even bigger loser, of course was the Communist Party, which managed to get only 3.66 percent of the vote, finishing last in the running among the parties/blocs that passed the 3 percent support required for representation in the Verkhovna Rada.

So, what's next? Doing the math and building a majority coalition in the new Rada.

According to Ukrayinska Pravda, the breakdown of seats in the new Rada is as follows: Party of the Regions, 186 seats; Tymoshenko Bloc, 129; Our Ukraine, 89; Socialists, 33; and Communists, 21. The only realistic possibilities for a majority coalition (226 votes out of 450) are by uniting two of the top three powers.

Mr. Yanukovych's party can be in the majority coalition only if it unites with Our Ukraine, as a Yanukovych-Tymoshenko alliance is out of the question. Likewise, the Tymoshenko bloc can only be in the majority if it unites with Our Ukraine plus the Socialists. However, Our Ukraine can be in the majority if it unites with either Regions or the Tymoshenko Bloc and the Socialists. Both the Socialists and the Tymoshenko Bloc, it must be noted, have declared their readiness to recreate the Orange coalition.

And yet, there is a hold-up. Mr. Yushchenko has stalled on announcing the re-establishment of Orange unity, despite the fact that key players in his bloc have spoken in favor of the move. Furthermore, he knows that an alliance with Regions, whose principles he does not share, is to use his own words "unacceptable and not understandable to me." The president need only recall the ill-advised and ill-fated memorandum of understanding he signed with that party in September 2005 only to discard it in January.

According to the latest information from Kyiv, Our Ukraine's decision on a coalition has been postponed to April 7 when its political council will meet. We say it's time for Mr. Yushchenko, obviously wounded in the match-up against Ms. Tymoshenko, to swallow his pride and quickly announce a coalition with his Orange colleagues. Any other move, as has been noted by various political analysts, would be political suicide for both Mr. Yushchenko and Our Ukraine. And the mantle of the heir to the Orange Revolution will pass to Ms. Tymoshenko, who will then lead a most vociferous opposition.

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